A volcano erupts under Eyjafjallajökull glacier in Iceland on April 14, 2010. Photo by Ingolfur Juliusson for REUTERS.

Question: What’s the difference between a Saturn-Uranus opposition in Virgo and Pisces and the same opposition in Libra and Aries?

Answer: I don’t know. But we’re about to find out.

It’s not often that we get this great opportunity to get out of the lab and into the field. I’ve been studying charts, and theoretically, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between a Saturn-Uranus opposition in mutable signs, cardinal signs, earth and water, or air and fire. It’s all explosive, and it’s disruptive on a global scale, as we’ve seen in the past two weeks.

Saturn and Uranus have been in opposition since late 2008. Actually, they’ve been in opposition since forever — their astrolological attributes are as different as two planets can get. Saturn is about structure, stability, established hierarchy, limitations, and constraints. Wild and unpredictable, Uranus rules rebellion, freedom, human rights, space travel, technological breakthroughs, electricity, and sparks of creative genius.

Simply put, Saturn is order and Uranus is chaos.

So what happens when they oppose one another in the sky? Well, their first exact contact of this cycle was on November 4, 2008 — Election Day in the United States, and we all know how that turned out. After the initial euphoria, many hoped-for changes failed to materialized, and the Obama administration is under heavy fire from both sides of the aisle as his popularity rating continues to plummet. He’s taking heat in particular for his healthcare plan, which even has led to violence against lawmakers who approved it. A new grassroots rebellion is rising among political conservatives.

Wait — rebellious conservatives? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Not when Saturn is opposed to Uranus!

This conflict will intensify as Saturn and Uranus continue their opposition into late July and early August, by which time they both will have changed signs and will be part of the explosive cardinal T-square with Pluto at the apex. In the meantime, they form an exact alignment today (Monday) at 28 degrees Virgo and Pisces. There will be one more exact contact on July 26, at 0 degrees Libra and Aries.

In other news this week, we have the Full Moon in Scorpio on Wednesday. I’ve already written about this event, so there’s not much more to say. Later in the day, Ceres turns retrograde. She never quite made it to an exact conjunction with Pluto. That will take place later this year and will bear watching. I’m still not ready to make pronouncements about what Ceres transits mean, but I know that a conjunction with Pluto is significant.

On Sunday, the Moon in Sagittarius squares Saturn and Uranus, briefly forming a mutable T-square, and then carries that energy forward to Pluto in Capricorn later in the day. If you’re having your own personal crisis with Saturn and Uranus, you could go into meltdown phase. The Moon in Sagittarius generally is optimistic, but it’s hard to think positive when you’re dodging falling debris.